For testing electronic devices, in particular integrated electronic circuits providing digital electrical output signals, a test or stimulus signal is fed to an input of the device under test, and a response signal of the device under test is evaluated by an automatic test equipment, for example by comparison with expected data. Such an automatic test equipment has included a particular test functionality, that it to say test functions or routines which the test equipment may carry out. This test functionality may be incorporated in the test equipment in the form of executable software code.
Such a test device may be adapted as multi-stage data processor including a plurality of test stages connected to a central control unit in a Daisy chain manner, wherein each of the test stages may be coupled to a plurality of assigned devices under test. By taking this measure, it may be possible to simultaneously test a plurality of devices under test, for instance 256 devices under test using 64 test stages.
In such a scenario, a huge amount of test signals applied via individual test lines provided separately for each test stage are foreseen which, with the increasing demand for testing a plurality of devices under test simultaneously, may yield a large amount of hardware and software effort.
Thus, a plurality of stimulus signals are applied individually and separately to each of the processing stages so as to provide each processing stage with a number of correspondingly assigned stimulus signals.